Hawks Behind Iraq War Rally for War With Iran

Key neoconservatives and other right-wing hawks who
championed the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq are calling for
military strikes against Iran in retaliation for its purported
murder-for-hire plot against the Saudi ambassador.

Leading the charge is the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), the
ideological successor to the Project for the New American Century
(PNAC), which played a critical role in mobilizing support for
“regime change” in Iraq in the late 1990s and subsequently
spearheaded the public campaign to invade the country after the 9/11
attacks. The group sent reporters appeals by two of its leaders for
military action on its letterhead Monday.

In a column headlined “Speak Softly … and Fight Back” in this week’s
Weekly Standard, chief editor William Kristol, co-founder of both
PNAC and FPI, said the alleged plot amounted to “an engraved
invitation” by Tehran to use force against it.

“We can strike at the Iranian Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), and
weaken them. And we can hit the regime’s nuclear weapons program, and
set it back,” he wrote, adding that Congress should approve a
resolution authorizing the use of force against Iranian entities
deemed responsible for attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and
Afghanistan, acts of terrorism, or “the regime’s nuclear weapons
program.”

Kristol’s advice was seconded by Jamie Fly, FPI’s executive director,
who called for President Barack Obama to emulate former presidents
Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton when they ordered targeted strikes
against Libya in 1986 and Iraq in 1993, respectively, in retaliation
for alleged terrorist plots against U.S. targets.

“It is time for President Obama to follow in the footsteps of his
predecessors and stand up to tyrants who kill Americans and threaten
our interests,” wrote Fly, who served on the National Security
Council staff and the Pentagon under George W. Bush, in the online
edition of National Review.

“It is time to take military action against the Iranian government
elements that support terrorism and its nuclear program. More
diplomacy is not an adequate response,” he wrote.

The FPI appeals, which have been echoed by other former Iraq war
hawks such as Bush’s former U.N. ambassador, John Bolton, and Reuel
Marc Gerecht at the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of
Democracies (FDD), came as analysts continue to debate the
credibility of the alleged plot against Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir and
how to react to it if, as the administration contends, it was
authorized at a high level in Tehran.

The likelihood that the plot was indeed real — and, if so, whether it
gained high-level authorization — has been widely questioned, mainly
by two sets of experts.

Reaction among virtually all Iran specialists, including former
government and intelligence personnel, has ranged from outright
skepticism to bewilderment over what, if the alleged plot was
actually consummated, Tehran would have hoped to gain from
assassinating the Saudi ambassador on U.S. soil.

“[N]othing short of mind-boggling,” wrote Vali Nasr, a senior fellow
at the Brookings Institute, in reaction to the alleged plot.

“If
true, this plot shows a monumental lapse in judgment on Tehran’s
part, an audacious and reckless adventurism that will go down as the
clerical regime’s colossal mistake that will weaken its hand
internationally and even unravel its grip on power….”

Counter-terrorist experts knowledgeable about Iran’s Quds Force, the
elite unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) accused of
sponsoring the scheme, have been even more skeptical that it would
rely on an untested Iranian-American used-car salesman to make
contact with a purported member of the Zetas drug cartel in Mexico to
arrange the assassination.

The supposed Zetas contact turned out to be an informant for the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), according to the complaint
released with great fanfare last week by the attorney general.

“Fishy, fishy, fishy,” said Bruce Riedel, a Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) veteran who was formerly in charge of the Near East and
South Asia on the National Security Council, when asked to
characterize his assessment, while Robert Baer, a former Middle East
CIA field officer, compared the plot as outlined by the complaint to
a “truly awful Hollywood script.”

“None of it measures up to Iran’s unsurpassed skill in conducting
assassinations,” he wrote on Time magazine’s website.

“Why on earth would they create a situation in which they had to rely
on this untested, untrained, unguided, and uncontrolled asset rather
than their own people?” wrote retired Col. Pat Lang, the Defense
Intelligence Agency’s former top Middle East and South Asia analyst
on his Sic Semper Tyrannis blog.

Calling the government’s case “trash,” Lang added, “The
overwhelming likelihood is that this is someone’s ‘information
operation’ intended to condition public attitudes for some purpose.”

Such skepticism, however, has not deterred the administration, key
lawmakers, or former Iraq hawks from calling for a stern response.

Indeed, Obama himself said Thursday that he will push for “the
toughest sanctions” against Iran on the part of the U.S. allies and
the U.N. Security Council, while senior Treasury officials testified
that they were considering blacklisting Iran’s central bank, a move
that enjoyed strong bipartisan support in Congress, notably from
lawmakers most closely associated with the Israel lobby, even before
the alleged plot was disclosed.

But a number of former Iraq hawks, few of whom appear to entertain
much doubt about the plot’s seriousness or provenance, are calling
for military action.

“More sanctions aren’t a bad idea,” wrote Gerecht, a major proponent
of invading Iraq when he was at the American Enterprise Institute
(AEI), in a column published Friday by The Wall Street Journal‘s
staunchly neoconservative editorial page. “But they will not scare [the
regime]. The White House needs to respond militarily to this
outrage. If we don’t we are asking for it.”

Another Iraq war booster, Andrew McCarthy, also of FDD, joined the
chorus at National Review online: “There is a range of possible
political responses, of course, but given its three-decade campaign
of aggression, the response to Iran must be military — and decisive.
The regime must be destroyed.”

Monday’s appeal by FPI for military action was perhaps more
remarkable, if only because three of the group’s four directors —
Eric Edelman, Robert Kagan, and Dan Senor — were recently named as
key advisers to Mitt Romney, the frontrunner for the 2012 Republican
presidential nomination.

Like Kristol, Kagan was a co-founder of both PNAC and FPI and a
critical advocate of invading Iraq, while Senor served in Iraq after
the invasion as a top official in the Coalition Provisional
Authority. Edelman, who, as ambassador to Turkey at the time, lobbied
its military to support the 2003 invasion, went on to serve as
undersecretary of defense for policy under former Pentagon chief
Donald Rumsfeld.

Although Romney has remained silent to date on how Washington should
respond to the alleged plot, a number of his other advisers who
championed the Iraq invasion have long called for the U.S. to make
the threat of military action against Iran more credible.

In his first major policy address two weeks ago, Romney himself
called for two aircraft carrier task forces to be permanently
deployed in the region as a deterrent to Tehran.

Author: Jim Lobe

Its a good thing we now know that the MEK and thus Israel (by association) were responsible for this farce. I wonder if anybody in government will cede this and back off. History dictates that our government will continue to accuse Iran of this plot for decades even if definitive evidence comes out, including admissions by the CIA and fBI, that this was all a political hoax

of course CNN will continue to further the hoax until ted turners last breath and far thereafter

Brad_Smith2

It's a funny thing how the mind works it really is double think. On the one hand we know all kinds of things that our government does are illegal, but on the other hand we always seem to be able to dismiss them. Some other guy did it, that was a long time ago, they were just covering for each other, etc etc etc.

It's congnetive dissonance. We know it's true but to admit it to ourselves makes us very uncomfortable.

Dahoit

Your take about Ted Turner;I don't believe he controls CNN anymore,and I checked out Cnns history and found an interview with the Guardian in Oct.02 where his comments aroused the ire of the hasbarites.Check it out.

rodney

cnn got ruined when it was infiltrated by the lair british journalists. the same type of british journalists who destroyed and ruined the al jareeza because british journnailsts are not really journalists but spies working for british delusion of getting empire back, they use usa for england;s benefit that is all.
itis not jews per se but the english from england who are the real villain for all war mongering.

Smithboy

Our Israeli lapdog media is, again, not raising one question about this incident that might show it as bogus intelligence.

The push is on for the indoctrination of the American mind. Watch the first four minutes of one of Americas "Good Christian warmongers" Pat Robinson as he tells his viewers that Iran is building a nuclear weapon. He then has a Jewish author on who has written a novel about….well just listen to fhe first four minutes of the interview and see how the average viewer would think a war with Iran would be sanctioned by God.http://www.cbn.com/media/player/index.aspx?s=/mp4…

baz

thanks but i dont have time for loonies like pat robertson, I would like to know, however, if god also sanctioned the wars against Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Palestine, Pakistan, somalia, Vietnam, Nicaragua, el salvador, Panama, Grenada, Cuba, etc, etc, etc..

If so, then i think god has a serious problem and should seek counseling for violent tendencies

rodney

itis not israle lap dog media itis british rather english barking dog media.

…aided and abetted, of course, by the mainstream, the 'alternative' and the Internet media, which have relentlessly censored and suppressed any serious discussion of the *theological* origins of this conflict; that is, the specific demonic *doctrines* which are at the foundation of conflict, bloodshed and genocide.

marko

I could give a rat's ass about "demonic *doctrines*"and other such claptrap. It's really simple. Stop killing people who have not threatened you. Stop invading other countries and inflicting mass suffering and slaughter upon people who, regardless of what they believe, have done NOTHING to deserve it. Start paying attention to what's happening at home. Then, if you want to dither on about "demonic *doctrines*" and other such foolishness, knock yourself out.

mark

We should criminalize warmongering, especially serial warmongering.

Crypto-Israelis like Kagen and Kristol have a lust for war that is virtually endless.

America is now an Israeli instrument for international terror, intimidation and murder.

rodney

itis britian and not israle which controls usa -belive that1
————-NO IT IS NOT ISRALE BUT ENGLAND WHICH USES USA TO MAKE PERPETAUL WAR ON ALL THOSE COUNTRIES BRAWEN AND WHITE WHO DARE TO RISE UP ON THEIR OWN MERIT AND EFFORT. ENGLAISH ARE THE PARASITE PEOPLE WHO JSUT WANT TO LOOT OTHERS WEALTH JSUT LIEK THAT-OFOCURSE THEY DONTO WANT TO WORK FOR THAT SO THEY USE USA MILITARY TO DO THEIR BIDDING.
IT SO HAPPENS THAT ISRALE AGENDA SEEMS TO COINCISDE WITH THAT OF THE BRITISH PIARATES.
DURING REAGAN ERA OF HARD COLD WART THAT DEFENCE MISNTER CASPER WIANEBERGER A POLE AND ANTI RUSSAIN WAS A VIRULENT ANTIJEW BUT A VERY PRO BRITISH THAT IS WHY HE STAYED IN HIS JOB LONG ENOUGH TO EARTN KNIGHTHOOD FROMN QUEEN OF ENGLAND FOR HIS SERVICE TO ENGLAND AS AMERICAN DEFENC MINSTER.———————-
———————————————————–
russiaas for hilary then you must understand that within one year of election of willy bill Clinton the British, who did not like Clinton had already infected Clinton clan and enslaved him to their agendas- in fact British were happy when Clinton lost democratic majority ih the house in 1994 election-they wanted not Clinton but pampered him anyway to use him for british agenda for perpetual war and Kosovo attack to justify nato existence- the same nato which was created and which serves for british interest only . It so happens that many jews have found the same aim recently as the British so it appears that it is neo con agenda -nothing could be further from he truth in fact British were adamant against Lebanon war in 1982 and were threatening Israel with atomic bomb in 1948 war. please recognise the real evil hat is British and we should neutralise that evil and dismantle their evil empire.

Generalissimo X

and i quote: “It is time for President Obama to follow in the footsteps of his predecessors and stand up to tyrants who kill Americans and threaten our interests,” wrote Fly,

i agree. i hope this means the summary arrest, trial, conviction and execution of every neocon PNAC scumbag going. it's time to rid the earth of these inhuman, war mongering, despicable monsters. they are antithetical to liberty and freedom and must no longer be tolerated in society.

rodney

-in fact so called jewsih lobby" power is a propaganda done by the english race to hide thier nefarious iterference in the american ploicy to uinflunce american domestic and foreing policy for the benefit of england.

Your country has to get to rock bottom before she stops invading, murdering,raping, destroying,other nations. I mean flat broke this is the only way then israel will have to cede lands they have stolen from the palestinians as there will be no help from the murderous country called america.

fedupandsick

"but given its three-decade campaign of agression" was actually attributed to Iran. Who in good conscience could utter such a thing while living in the country that makes Iran's agression look like Mary Poppins in comparison to its own?